Page 129 - Premeditated Aggro

Author Notes:

Sometimes, even the most talkative group of roleplayers just wants to knuckle down and destroy something for a change. This is convenient when there's a particularly annoying villain in the party's sights, and it would be more efficient to be rid of it than to hear its backstory.

But this can get rather dangerous if the DM knows when the party's in this kind of mood. It's very easy to punish blind action with a few devastating consequences.

Damn DM, making your game to easy for minmaxers, too hard for munchkins, too combat oriented for diplomancers, too slow and talky for HacknSlashers, and for railroading because you can't improvise on the fly.

Damn commenters, filling over half the page with a single chain.
Damn Combo Breakers, breakin' dem combos.
Damn internet, fuelling my essay anf then trampling it with comics.
Damn unicorns, mocking me with their universe's tolerance of a more fluid set of laws of reality.
Damn mages, not setting things on fire.
Damn halflings, setting things on fire.

The party that I DM for tends to be more hack-n-slash than diplomacy. I tend to give them what they want 75% of the time because it makes them happy, but the other 25% of the time they're going to have to deal with an intelligent villain and that's like kryptonite to Superman. XD

Evil Wizard: "You'll never take me alive!"
Party: "And what are you going to do?"
Evil Wizard: **Jumps out of the window on the 12th floor**
Party: "Well he was an idiot."
Evil Wizard: **Turns into an eagle and flies away**
Party: "...well he was a genius."

I think it is primarily because the average testosterone-charged male is gonna do what the average testosterone-charged male is gonna do. "Winning" is somewhat ingrained as the ultimate goal in many males.

It may also be caused a bit by the fact that the average DM is not exactly the greatest fiction writer of the past decade.

Actually, my last campaign was mostly girls, and it was the guys who were always trying to be diplomatic. We were always excited to hit something so hard it's head exploded haha. My character was even suppose to be the diplomat considering she was the sorcerer, but I gave her a huge superiority complex that almost always resulted in a fight even over trivial things. It is probably because our DM was way more funny describing battles than NPCs. But then again she would allow players to do things like jump checks on their snake to see if it can attack a hovering creature- I love DMs that allow you to do ridiculous things

I had an elven cleric who devolved from snarker to downright evil. We marked her alignment as Bloodthirsty Neutral. When I sat down for a session at a local group, their DM was confused when I tried to start a bar fight for the fun of it.

In the very first group I DM'd we only had one regular female player, and she was actually one of the most bloodthirsty members of the party. She never, ever, EVER tried to talk her way out of a situation (unless it was to deliberately provoke the enemy of the day into attack her first) and always aggravated and picked fights with the other party members.

Actually, I think the prevalence of combat in RPGs has less to do with testosterone and more to do with escapism. Talking your way out of your problems is what you should be doing in RL, but in RPGs you can often just hit things until they go away. That sort of simplicity isn't offered in Real Life. And of course, the average player--testosterone-charged male or no--can't shoot fire from their hands and throw five knives in as many seconds.

@Karilyn In my group, the two guys are the Diplomancers, while the woman is an insane H&S barbarian that will rush into combat without healing and attack giant monsters solo. Everyone else is very RP focused, but she wants to charge the gargantuan cobalt dragon in the middle of a blizzard when the dragon tries to be diplomatic. At level 4.

My group kinda defies this one, because I have two hack-and-slashers, a guy and a girl. Classic case of Guys Smash, Girls Shoot, though, since the guy is usually melee and the girl is invariably magic (except for when she's a ninja).

The 1970s were the heyday of wargames—both hex-and-counter and miniatures. A designer of the latter type, Gary Gygax, discovered that his friends were more willing to play his medieval-warfare miniatures wargame, <i>Chainmail,</i> if he included fantasy elements such as magic, mythical creatures, and individual heroes with special abilities and personalities.

He accidentally spawned an entire new <i>genré</i> of games as a result. The rest is history.

This origin is why role-playing games borrow so much wargaming terminology—referee, campaign, damage instead of injury, and so on. It’s unfortunate, because wargaming jargon aims to distance the player from his playing pieces, exactly the opposite of what an RPG should do, but done is done.

And using the site’s comment engine on an iPhone is a pain in the haunch.

Also take into account that humans are naturally conflict driven. While talking out your problems might give you a warm fuzzy feeling, nothing feels better than thoroughly beating an opponent into submission (or the dirt), and getting what you want that way.

@Bronymous I wouldn't bother rolling diplomacy checks, but I would still argue my point in a calm and rational manner... While in a frenzied rage, hacking apart the entire bar with my favorite +1 flaming battle axe.

Because in order to have a proper discussion as gentlemen, a flame is required, and the bar lacked a fireplace.

Most of the groups I've been in don't know how to diplomance, which is why I prefer combat to diplomacy. Every time someone in the group tries to diplomance it ends up wasting time for no gain or horribly backfiring.

Like when someone's sorcerer tried to diplomance and attempt to sneakily charm the big bad. They ended up getting permanently charmed by the big bad who was revealed to be a higher level sorcerer and they both dimension doored away.

Or when my group spends hours trying to diplomance npcs that literally know nothing about our quest. I mean honestly how many dirty peasants or shopkeepers are supposed to know obscure facts about our quests? Oh wait, none of them did.

"I say, Son of Zeus, could you please hand me a crumpet? Much obliged, old chap."
"I must say, my cimmerian friend, your new blend of tea is scrumptious! Jolly good, jolly good indeed! Could I bother you for a spot more?"

As brought up by other posters, D&D, the first of the genre, was based on a war game which evolved into something different. It didn't start out with the intent of roleplaying.

Combat is about 95% of what the rules in D&D are.

Other systems place less emphasis on this. Some games you actually want to avoid it. Call of Cthulhu and Shadowrun come to mind. Sometimes you don't want to be noticed. Leaving a bunch of bodies around can get the police after you, and there are some things that will straight up kill you if they get close enough.

And while I can't think of a system that has no rules for combat, it's reached to the point where you can run a game without any. You'd be hard pressed to create a game that's interesting without it. Not going to say it's impossible, but it's still going to be hard. I want to say, "The PCs work at one of Goldman Sachs hedge funds." But that will probably involve combat when customers try and kill them, fellow employees try and kill them, their spouses try to kill them, and the police try and kill them.

Other games do exist with rules that are more supportive of creative problem solving. And even then the real limiting factor on that is the GM. Well, and your own creativity. After all, just because you can sneak into the Troll camp and kidnap the Troll Princess and hold her hostage unless the Chief breaks off the siege doesn't mean anyone will think of it.

Another thing that doesn't help with the combat thing is that there's been a lot of video games that call themselves roleplaying games, when all you really do is get more stats. It's now at the point where you can't actually call something like D&D a roleplaying game because people will confuse it with Final Fantasy. To be fair, Final Fantasy I did get a lot of it's stuff from D&D. It's not even like it was really trying to hide it. So the confusion is somewhat understandable.

Still, when you get some people to sit down at the table and you tell them it's a roleplaying game? They'll probably think, "Oh. So I go around grinding monsters and getting loot so I can buy better stuff right?" Hopefully they'll witness some player do something absolutely brilliant in a short time after sitting down so they understand why one would want to play this and not a video game.

Somewhat related. A friend and I got to talking and we basically decided there's really two different kinds of games, and the distinction is subtle.

First off is an adventure game. Not a lot of thought is needed, but it doesn't hurt. The important part here is that everything is just kind of there. Treasure exists to be found, monsters exist to be slain, villains exist to be overcome. Everything revolves around the PCs. If you take them out, then there's no purpose to any of it. There's nothing wrong with this. But make sure not to ever think about things too hard.

In a roleplaying game? There's a story. And you're the ones making it. There's a lot of kinds of stories people can create. In one of these games? The mechanics aren't as important as the decisions you make. The rules are just kind of there to help the story along.

What makes a good adventure game does not necessarily make a good roleplaying game.

Ya know, I'm of the opinion that diplomancy in an RPG can actually be a lot more rewarding in the long run than your general hack-and-slash solution, just because it takes more effort usually.

Usually, it seems the best moments in my Dragon Age RP group came when the party was negotiating and/or planning - not actually fighting. A fight every so often is definitely a great way to mix things up, but nothing beats the feeling you get from convincing the local racist blacksmith to give you the McGuffin after you convince him to arm wrestle you for it! Ha ha!

Ah-hah! But you still had to fight him for it, even if it WAS just an arm-wrestle.

The thing about tabletop games in general, from my experience, is that during encounters- regardless of if they are combat, traps, puzzles, or whatnot- players are faced with opposition. It's a chance to show off, a chance to use all your cool abilities, and if the particular encounter happens to fall into your area of expertise, a chance to show what you bring to the party. Not to mention the thrill from the danger (Assuming your DM doesn't have a no-kill policy).

Violence or lack of violence, how interesting the game is really is about the conflict.

Even conversations can be full of conflict. Think about when you've captured a reasonably intelligent villain. They're not going to say anything to incriminate themselves if you just ask them to. So when talking to them you need to get creative.

At this point, we pretty much our only really developing our skills at manipulating through anger. Because whenever we talk we manage to enrage people.

It's kind of impressive that we've had so little fighting really. Considering how angry we make people. But really, it's mostly evil people we infuriate.

Oh. And we fight super unfair. Like opening round we're probably going to cast at least three fight ending spells. And probably use some poison too.

Torture has it merits as well. It doesn't even need any actual violence. You could terrify the hell out of them with vague threats, gaslighting, hinting the dragonborn is a cannibal, or that one of the PC's is a complete murderous psycho if left alone.

You've got it pretty much down. There's a bit of an art to this. Especially since most of our enemies ARE psychopaths. That doesn't mean they can't be intimidated or manipulated, but they'll be extremely contrary. Threats aren't likely to work, but displays of power might.

If the person isn't evil, we're unlikely to have to resort to extreme measures to begin with.

I had a male character make sexual advances at a male prisoner once. The connotation was that my character would prefer he didn't talk, so all manner of depraved things could occur. Then another party member decided breaking limbs would be more effective. It wasn't.

My character in a super game, Scarlet Saber, has the Taunt feat and a Defense out the wazoo, meaning that he can infuriate enemies with a Bluff check to attack him, knowing they won't likely hit at all. He has maximum ranks in bluff and I am naturally sarcastic to the extreme. It's fun times all around!

I have a more amusing and pacifistic method of torture. When you have the bad guy, you drug him, so he'll be out for about a day or so. In the mean time, tie a tourniquet around his shoulder, and cut a hole in a table. Lay him on the table on his back, with that arm going through the hole, and secure the arm so it can't move at all. Tie the rest of his arms to the table, and wait for him to wake up. When he gets mad, and starts to make a threat, just say, "I suppose when you escape you'll wring my neck with your own two hands, won't you? Well, you might need a new plan, because that won't be very effective without this."

And you hold up an arm, severed at the shoulder.

"Now tell us what we want to know, or you'll take another little nap."

Im in an odd situation with this, since I am always ready and willing to kill anything and everything we might come across in a campaign, and yet whenever diplomacy absolutely gets the winning vote, I ultimately end up being the party talker.

One would think that I would just start a fight in that situation, but something about the spotlight being on me makes me follow through with the diplomacy. And then start a fight if there's time.

BTW: I tried to send an email to you sometime ago about the Unknown Ponies game. I just wanted to know if you got that email? Also if you need help with your update/redesign of the system, I would be willing to help you bounce ideas.

Currently redesigning the engine as per Mike Pondsmith's suggestion. Working with a math-brony on the ins and outs of basically using a "Pass the Pigs" method, only using 3 pony dice rather than 2 plastic pigs.

I really have often thought that this country would be a lot safer if more women were armed. The only criminal use of a firearm that I can recall was when "Squeaky Fromme tried to shoot President Ford. Women are far more likely to be on the receiving end. I'm guessing that's one reason you have a carry permit. Good for you, and I hope you stay safe.

Hehe, I have a... slightly different take on the wanting to kill something situation.

Our group was primarily neutral/good, and I was playing a gnome thief/priest (he had an interesting childhood). Now, we'd been shanghaied by a high level NPC into investigating a temple that the drow were trying to reclaim. This was all well and good, except our party's average level was 2. So after the first couple WEEKS of barely avoiding detection and death deep behind enemy lines with the NPC refusing to let us leave, my character seriously began considering killing him and derailing the campaign to prevent us from dying a horrible, torturous death. Luckily, soon after we completed the dungeon, but I still wonder how things would have went had the NPC been "killed by the drow."

Rainbow Dash...gonna level with ya. You're in a world of ponies where friendship and love have been demonstrated to be THE most powerful forces in existence. And you think that FIGHTING the dragon is the most effective method? Violence is not the answer.

Unless it's changelings. Those filthy love-sucking parasites are to be exterminated.

Hey folks, Stairc here. I'm the DM that ran those adventures most of Newbiespud's DnD comments are coming from. We've also co-dmed together and I've played in a few adventures of his too.

It seems a lot of people (myself included) want to try out another MLP adventure - but Erin definitely can't handle *all* the demand. If anyone's interested, I'd be willing to run a Skype session sometime for 4 players in the magical land of Equestria.

Alright, seems there's a ton of interest. I don't think first-come-first-serve is fair for this, so we'll set up an easy application to separate the men from the colts and the mares from the foals.

1) There is no, absolutely no, prior RPing experience required. New players are just as welcome as veterans. I run D&D camps for new players every Summer too, it's awesome to be someone's first ever DM. No matter what your experience, feel free to try and join the game. =)

2) I'm on West Coast time, so you might want to keep that in mind. The game will probably run quite a few hours, so if you're in a later time zone it could involve you staying up till the early hours of the morning. If you're fine with that, that's fine with me.

3) Send an email to minimallyexceptional@gmail.com with the following information by midnight on *June 10*

A) Why you like MLP

B) Your favorite strip in Friendship-is-Dragons.

C) What kind of pony character you'd like to play (don't worry about stats or character sheet, just tell me about the personality and backstory you have in mind - try to get me excited about the character. Canon-Characters aren't going to be allowed as PCs - though you will probably run into some in the course of your adventure.)

D) Why you want to play a MLP adventure.

E) Anything else that you'd like to share about RPGs or MLP in general. =)

The more detail, effort and creativity you put into answering the above questions - the better your chances stand of getting in the game.

Oh, and if you've been one of those people writing special Friendship-is-Dragons fan-interpretations - let me know. Special consideration will be given, I love those. =)

NOTE: If you're like Rainbow Dash and aren't a fan of diplomacy - you might want to wait this adventure out. Friendship is Magic, and this adventure is going to tap into themes of creative problem solving more than combat. Hard to run combat on Skype anyway.

I had the opposite problem in the last campaign I played in. I was the only diplomancer in a group full of hack and slash folks (I was a cleric of Olidammara, DM didn't have exact spheres on hand so we ruled it was charm and trickery).

So, we're running through this massive fortress that is in the process of being turned into a golem that will annihilate a nation we're trying to save, when we come across a cleaning lady in one of the rooms. I'm trying to be fast, so I use my diplomacy skill to try and persuade her we're supposed to be there. It works, and we're about to leave, when one of our party members decides we should try to get the girl to come with us.

I quickly try to explain to him that a diplomacy skill is not magic, it won't magically make them act how I want. As such, being in character is damn important, and us as "minions of the big bad" didn't have a good reason to carry her with us. Of course, he didn't care. He had a harebrained scheme involving casting a spell on the servant girl and throwing her at an ogre we spied through a window earlier. The rest of the party wound up siding with him, even though we kinda didn't have the time in-character to drag a captive kicking and screaming through the castle.

Couldn't you intimidate her with threats involving the big bad? As in "We're following the boss'es orders and don't have time to argue with you, do you REALLY want to question the boss'es orders?", or something like that?

Lowly servants (especially cleaners, since they probably have to clean after failed minion remains) probably know how nasty the big bad can be when pissed off.

Don't feel too badly; it seems that everyone in my current campaign keeps forgetting diplomacy is an option, even when I keep suggesting it. So when their plan goes belly-up, they usually blame me for not convincing them to abandon their own antics. It's all completely logical...if you don't think about it at all.

See, that's the sad part; Diplomacy is not an option generally if the group wants to get items and money from dungeons and situations and what-not. I've never seen a game where using Diplomacy in the situation they were in during a Dungeon could do that for them.

A dungeon is one thing; whether or not your character is a combat beast or not, you always have to consider fighting as a possible outcome. Attacking and killing an innkeeper because there are no waffles, and subsequently having to fight off the local garrison is another matter entirely. Wish I could say it was the last stupid thing we did... I made up for it later though, using my diplomancy to best a group of ogres that far outclassed us. Have to say, it's pretty satisfying to melt someones mind with words (rolled a natural 20 for Diplomacy).

Guys, I know why Fluttershy's player is so scared. It's not so much because she's scared of combat, as she's scared that her Diplomacy would fail... because she's built solely for beasts instead of dragons.

As for why battle is such a big part of the game I have another belief, control. Remember, Rarity said it herself. Usually the DM is king. Until you get to combat, then the party takes control...barring cursed dice of course.

Our party actually has a unique curse related to the dice: Use your dice as an end-around for avoiding combat, or you will fail hard, which is why I'm the party's diplomancer. The one exception to that was during our Eclipse Phase campaign, where we were out numbered two-to-one, completely out-gunned and out-classed in every skill. Unfortunately for the would-be assassins, they botched so hard, they beat themselves up. It was glorious.